Random books from wunderkind's library
The Complete Plays by Sophocles
Travel in the Mouth of the Wolf by Paul Fattaruso
A Jacques Barzun Reader by Jacques Barzun
The Tenth Man by Graham Greene
Civilwarland in Bad Decline by George Saunders
The African Queen by C.S. Forester
Letters of Max Beerbohm, 1892-1956 by Max Beerbohm
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LibraryThing authors: Ara 13 (Ara13), David Mitchell (davidmitchell), Terry Bain (terrybain)
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Member: wunderkind
CollectionsYour library (1,172)
Reviews39 reviews
TagsNR (751), Britain and Ireland (536), 20th century (post-1950) (444), 20th century (pre-1950) (362), non-fiction (342), USA (341), college (213), 19th century (142), 21st century (141), HS (112) — see all tags
Cloudstag cloud, author cloud
Groups75 Books Challenge for 2009, Black Books, Blitz Books: the WWII British Home Front, 1938 to 1945, BritWit, Chicagoans, INTPs, Neuroscience, The Diogenes Club, The University of Chicago
Favorite authorsChris Adrian, Beryl Bainbridge, James Baldwin, G. K. Chesterton, Noël Coward, Charles Dickens, Karen Blixen, T. S. Eliot, Anne Fadiman, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Penelope Fitzgerald, E. M. Forster, Graham Greene, W. Somerset Maugham, Ian McEwan, A. A. Milne, Lorrie Moore, Mervyn Peake, Marilynne Robinson, Paul Scott, Wallace Stegner, John Steinbeck, Kurt Vonnegut, Evelyn Waugh, P. G. Wodehouse, Virginia Woolf (Shared favorites)
Favorite bookstores57th Street Books, O'Gara and Wilson, Booksellers, Powell's - Hyde Park, Seminary Co-op Bookstore
About meRecent college graduate working as a research technician at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
Currently reading:
Part I of my 75 Books Challenge thread
Part II of my 75 Books Challenge thread
Read in 2009 (in approximate order from best to worst):
A Better Angel: Stories by Chris Adrian
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
Jesus' Son: Stories by Denis Johnson
Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey
Anagrams by Lorrie Moore
Man's Fate by Andre Malraux
I Didn't Do It For You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation by Michela Wrong
Gob's Grief by Chris Adrian
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories by Raymond Carver
Birds of America: Stories by Lorrie Moore
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
Travel in the Mouth of the Wolf by Paul Fattaruso (twice)
The Cheese Monkeys by Chip Kidd
Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut
Drawers & Booths by Ara 13
Like Life: Stories by Lorrie Moore
The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood by Elspeth Huxley
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburo Oe
Self-Help by Lorrie Moore
The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton
Henrietta's War: News from the Home Front, 1939-1942 by Joyce Dennys
Mollie & Other War Pieces by A.J. Liebling
Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje
A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
after the quake: stories by Haruki Murakami
The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald
The Harold Nicolson Diaries: 1907-1963
Chess Story by Stefan Zweig
In Persuasion Nation: Stories by George Saunders
Dirty Snow by Georges Simenon
And Where Were You, Adam? by Heinrich Boll
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing
No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories by Miranda July
Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline: Stories by George Saunders
Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore
Epitaph of a Small Winner by Machado de Assis
Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene
Topper by Thorne Smith
Entertaining Eric: Letters from the Home Front 1941-1944 by Maureen Wells
Stoner by John Williams
The Lost Slayer by Christopher Golden
Closely Watched Train by Bohumil Hrabal
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution by Nicholas Meyer
The Slide by Kyle Beachy
The Natural History of the Wild Cats by Andrew Kitchener
How to Become Extinct by Will Cuppy
Look Back in Anger by John Osborne
The Young Visiters by Daisy Ashford
Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut
1066 and All That by W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Good-bye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton
The Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov
God is Dead by Ron Currie, Jr.
you are a little bit happier than i am by Tao Lin
Loveless Love by Luigi Pirandello
The Learners by Chip Kidd
A Letter of Mary by Laurie R. King
The Temptation of the West by Andre Malraux
Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot
The Confidential Clerk by T.S. Eliot
Holiday on Ice by David Sedaris
Shoplifting from American Apparel by Tao Lin
You Are a Dog by Terry Bain
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
The Magic Christian by Terry Southern
About my libraryWhat's on Librarything is what's on my shelves, except for about a dozen duplicate copies that I've left out. I suppose a lot of it's British. There are relatively few female writers (~15% of the total), but I don't know why. Books not originally published in English are also sadly underrepresented (~20%). I've got a goodly number of plays and short stories and volumes of poetry, but my true love is the novel. I'm just now getting into non-fiction: after years of trying to force myself into philosophy, I find that history and science are the only subjects for which I have any patience. I don't keep books if I don't think I'll ever want to read them again, but sometimes I keep books I couldn't finish if I feel like it was just bad timing on my part.
As for tags, "college" means I've read it since starting college (in September '05), "HS" means I read it in high school, and "pre-HS" means (you guessed it) I read it before high school, although some of the HS and most of the pre-HS books have disappeared over the years. Almost all of the other tags are places/centuries of origin or non-fiction categories.
A roundabout explanation of my rating system: A four-and-a-half star book for me is one that I thought was excellent in every way except that I didn't feel emotionally involved. Thus, a five-star books is excellent and probably made me go all starry-eyed afterward with thoughts about how profound the world is, etc. The meaning of the other stars can probably be extrapolated from that. I rarely ever keep anything rated lower than three stars, unless it has sentimental value or I feel like I need to reread it someday.
Real nameErin
LocationChicago, formerly Iowa
Account typepublic, lifetime
Connection NewsConnection News
URLs
http://www.librarything.com/profile/wunderkind (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/wunderkind (library)
Common KnowledgeSeries (142), Awards (289), Characters (3997), Places (766)
Member sinceApr 9, 2007
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Linda
posted by Whisper1 at 8:58 am (EST) on Oct 19, 2009
I loved Bed and liked Eeee Eee Eeeee myself, and was thinking SFAA might be up with Bed b/c I thought E.E.E.'s biggest fault was its length....Ugh, I've really clumsily shared my feelings, but you get what I'm sayin'!
posted by RSHabroptilus at 11:51 pm (EST) on Oct 17, 2009
Mark and I have been discussing the possibility of another group read in November and want your input. We have narrowed it down to two books at this point. "The People of the Book" by Geraldine Brooks and "The Thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield. So chat it up with friends or us and let us know if you are up for it and what you think. Probably the same plan as with "Pillars of the Earth" which seemed to work out perfectly for almost all of us.
Think it over and give one of us a shout.
hugs and looking forward to hearing from you,
belva
posted by nannybebette at 9:59 pm (EST) on Sep 8, 2009
I remember that you are a Chris Adrian fan. This week's issue of The New Yorker includes a short story by him, which can be read for free online:
A Tiny Feast
Best wishes,
Darryl
posted by kidzdoc at 5:48 am (EST) on Apr 13, 2009
by the way, i find your list of reads very interesting. got to check it out now and then for book ideas... :-)
posted by deebee1 at 10:24 am (EST) on Apr 11, 2009
thanks for dropping by my thread. my topic is on governance in transboundary water resources and climate change.
posted by deebee1 at 12:23 pm (EST) on Apr 8, 2009
Thanks for stopping by my thread and for the compliment. I think we also met on kidzdoc's thread in the discussion on the Karinthys. :)
Even though I'd never commented on your thread, I've been following it since the beginning, and I enjoy your reviews.
Deborah
posted by arubabookwoman at 3:48 pm (EST) on Mar 1, 2009
I like your analogy of the books as a 'gold mine', since I indeed consider books to be treasures. You can do as I am doing with the Nonesuch Dickens - just buy one a month, lol.
You could check The Book Depository to see if they might have any of the titles. They are located in the UK, so they might. The Book Depository does not charge for shipping, so you would at least save a little. Their website is here: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/WEBSITE/...
Stasia
posted by alcottacre at 1:51 am (EST) on Feb 11, 2009
When I went to the Imperial War Museum site, I did a search for 'letters' and these are the books that came up:
Don't You Know There's a War On
Speaking for Themselves
The Holocaust - Lost Words
Behind the Lines
The Unknown Soldier
The Children's War
Entertaining Eric (which I know you have already read)
Naked Warriors
Churchill - The War Leader
Out of Harm's Way
Tommy Goes to War
I have no idea if these are the books in the series you were referring to or not, but they might be a place to start.
Stasia
posted by alcottacre at 1:26 am (EST) on Feb 9, 2009
Your kitty looks like it was a very enjoyable read!
And I am searching for a copy of Drawers & Booths; it seems an amazing book!
And I wish we could edit these comments, I always forget something, make a typo, etc...
L.
posted by Lman at 10:16 pm (EST) on Jan 17, 2009
I thank you for the compliment (?); as I am now older. LOL! What I meant was that I was cute (like an echidna) when I was younger; I happen to think echidnas are very cute at any age (after they have grown into their skin, of course)! But I see what you mean... They are so small, and unusual, like a lot of our native fauna, and I think they aren't given enough press compared with koalas and such. They vie with the platypus in my popularity stakes! I just saw this great documentary the other day about 'ugly' (read strangely-formed, IMHO) creatures and it had a piece about the star-nosed mole. What a fantastic appendage - I had never seen it before! Amazing you now mention it...
I am curious as to what brought you to check out my echidna in the first place...
Lovely to meet you BTW,
~Lyn
posted by Lman at 10:09 pm (EST) on Jan 17, 2009
I'm very pleased to know that you have found my library of interest, and that you took the trouble to find some of the books I recommended on the Blitz thread. Every few years I get in the mood to read Blitz/home front related books, so you contacted me at a good time, when I'm in one of those phases. Of the books I recently acquired, I haven't read "Blitz" yet (the one you have), I very highly recommend "Raiders Overhead" (though that one might be difficult to find); and I'd also recommend "The First Day of the Blitz" which is written by an historian but includes many eyewitness accounts and is quite readable.
I've started rereading "Entertaining Eric" - thanks again for reminding me of it!
Best,
Maggie
posted by MaggieO at 2:48 pm (EST) on Jan 17, 2009
BTW, this is a delightful book, and I'm glad you reminded me of it, as I've been reading British WWII related books lately. I think it's time for me to read Entertaining Eric again.
I also noticed that you've just added Tom Harrisson's Living Through the Blitz, which is also an excellent book.
And, you are reading Epitaph of a Small Winner, which is a favorite of mine from years ago -- it's probably about time to think about rereading that, too.
It was good to hear from you. Please let me know if I can be of any help with combining Entertaining Eric.
Best regards,
Maggie
posted by MaggieO at 8:38 pm (EST) on Jan 16, 2009
posted by slickdpdx at 6:45 pm (EST) on Jan 16, 2009
Yes, I am at Wash U. I'm a biologist, too, in the Developmental Biology program. Specifically, I work on cell-cell adhesion and cell motility in tissue patterning. In Drosophila. I'm finishing up (finally) and writing and very very stressed and broke. Just as a warning! But you seem to know what you are getting yourself into. :-) Behavioral neuro is really interesting; I took a class on it in college and loved it. Interview season is coming up, right? Or do you already know where you are going? If you're still interviewing, good luck! Remember, all they want is to see that you can think. Also, if they invite you for an interview and spend all that money on plane tickets and wining and dining you, you're probably in. (This'll be completely annoying if you've already done it, so sorry 'bout that but we old grad students cannot be stopped from putting in our advice)
Jen
posted by jfetting at 2:39 pm (EST) on Jan 11, 2009